Tag: miles morales

  • Marvel’s Teen Heroes Unite as New ‘Champions’

    Marvel’s Teen Heroes Unite as New ‘Champions’

    For the past few weeks Marvel has been teasing us with images showing their younger superheroes leaving their teams with the caption “I Quit!” Now we know what those teens are quitting to do. Marvel is reviving the Champions and stocking the team with teen heroes from across the Marvel Universe.

    Champions #1 (1975)
    Champions #1 (1975)

    Written by Mark Waid and drawn by Humberto Ramos, Champions will be a new ongoing title in the fall. The original Champions was a short-lived title from the ’70s that put together an eclectic group of heroes: Angel, Black Widow, Darkstar, Ghost Rider, Hercules and Iceman. And put the motley group in Los Angeles, instead of Marvel’s traditional home of New York. The book lasted 17 issues before being cancelled and left dormant for 40 years.

    The new team collects Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man (Miles Morales) and Nova from the Avengers, the Vision’s synthezoid daughter Viv, teen Cyclops from the X-Men, and Amadeus Cho: The Totally Awesome Hulk.

    “When we first started talking about names for this group, we tended to go for ‘something something Avengers,’ ” said Marvel Editor Tom Brevoort That always seemed off-mission for me. If they’re cutting the cord, if they’re going off on their own to establish themselves as a thing onto themselves, they kind of need their own name. They are ultimately very socially conscious, very activist-minded, and very positive about being superheroes, so the name had to feel like a really upbeat superhero name.”

     

  • Miles Morales Rumored to Star in His Own Animated Movie

    Miles Morales Rumored to Star in His Own Animated Movie

    One of superhero project that has been floating under mos people’s radar is an animated Spider-Man movie in development at Sony. Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The LEGO Movie) the animated Spider-Man movie was announced by Tom Rothman, chairman of the Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group at last year’s Cinemacon.

    When he announced the movie, Rothman made it clear that it would not tie into the live-action Spider-Man, who is now a member of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

    The film will exist independently of the projects in the live-action Spider-Man universe, all of which are continuing.

    So the animated Spider-Man would not be the same Spider-Man that Tom Holland is portraying in the live action movie. Now Hollywood Heroes is reporting that the animated Spider-Man will not be Peter Parker, but Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man instead.

    Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man
    Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man

    After Peter Parker died in the Ultimate Universe, Miles Morales,  a half-black, half-Puerto Rican teen was bit by another radioactive spider that was developed in an attempt to recreate Parker’s powers. Taking up the mantle of Spider-Man, Morales became New York’s protector.

    Writer Brian Michael Bendis was inspired to create the character om Morales by his own mixed-race family and the campaign to get Sony to cast African-American actor Donald Glover as Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man movie. Although it ultimately failed, the campaign culminated in Glover wearing Spider-an pajamas on an episode of Community.

    Bendis said of Glover, “I saw him in the costume and thought, ‘I would like to read that book.’ So I was glad I was writing that book.”

    Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso also cited the election of Barack Obama, the first African-American president as a catalyst for the creation of Morales.

    “When we were planning Ultimatum, we realized that we were standing at the brink of America electing its first African-American President and we acknowledged that maybe it was time to take a good look at one of our icons,” he said.

    After the events of Secret Wars, Morales has found himself in the mainstream Marvel Universe, Earth-616, and has joined the Avengers.

     

  • Marvel Bets Big on Diversity With The All-New, All-Different Avengers

    Marvel Bets Big on Diversity With The All-New, All-Different Avengers

    The All-New, All-Different Avengers
    The All-New, All-Different Avengers

    After teasing a cover that revealed Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) and Thor (Female Edition), Marvel Comics unveiled the entire line-up of the new Avengers team that will launch after the events of Secret Wars.

    The full roster is:

    • Thor — The new Thor will survive the Marvel Universe reboot and join the Avengers, arguably as their their most powerful member.
    • Iron Man — For the sake of argument, we will stipulate that Tony Stark is in the suit.
    • Captain America — The Falcon version of Captain America will also survive into the new era.
    • The Vision — Everyone’s favorite android will receive a big boost from his presence in Avengers: Age of Ultron, so it’s great to see him back in the comics.
    • Ms. Marvel — Kamala Khan has been a surprise breakout hit for Marvel, and they look to both capitalize on the Pakistani-American teen’s popularity, and cement it firmly in place by having her join their premier superhero team.
    • Spider-Man (Miles Morales) — Miles Morales is a Spider-Man from another universe where Peter Parker died at the hands of the Green Goblin. He is younger than the Peter Parker of our universe.
    • Nova — The latest member of the intergalactic police force “The Nova Corps.”

    Roughly half of this team has been labeled “controversial” by a small segment of the comics community that believes that comics are being changed in order to suit a progressive political agenda.

    They hate that Thor is now a woman, that Captain America is black, that Ms. Marvel is Muslim and that the Miles Morales Spider-Man is half black and half Latino.

    Putting all of these heroes on their premier team is a clear sign that Marvel is more interested in reaching out to new fans and new audiences than to catering to the demands of an ever shrinking and increasingly irrelevant conservative fan base that hates change.